Tattooing Ethnohistory & Immune Response Project

Inking of Immunity

We hypothesized that individuals with more tattoo experience advertise their quality via general health, including healing quickly from tattoos. Research in Poland found tattooing associated with greater bilateral symmetry, a signal of developmental stability and health. We tested this using salivary immunoglobulin A, a biomarker of immune response, before and after tattoo sessions and among individuals varying in tattoo experience. Immunoglobulin A is a robustly-produced immunological factor that is a frontline defense lining the respiratory and gastrointestinal tracts, is metabolically expensive, but is highly conserved across species, suggesting its evolutionary importance. Consistent with our predictions, we found that individuals with more tattoo experience demonstrate allostatic changes indicative of adjustment to the tattooing stressor and recover faster than individuals with less tattoo experience, signaling their overall health.

Cultural Models in Tattooed Southern Females

In addition to collecting data for the above biological investigation, Johnna Dominguez investigated the influence of tattooed women’s perceived social support for their body projects. Tattooing is only marginally acceptable in some social circles, and being tattooed may literally “mark” an individual in the eyes of others, resulting in associations with risk behavior and other socially unacceptable qualities. Johnna derived cultural models through interviewing women with long-term tattoo experience and women getting new tattoos. Results indicate that cultural models are in transition but that women who hold positive models of tattooed women yet hide their own tattoos report significantly greater perceived stress.

Tattooing Ethnohistory of New France

In a literature review on the functions of tattooing in North America, Chris Lynn hypothesizes a convergence between indigenous and colonial styles and functions rather than the long-held Polynesian replacement model. One function, the “inoculation hypothesis,” became the premise upon which we based the Inking of Immunity Study. Cassie Medeiros has found that convergence models varied among colonial and native groups involved. She is conducting an in-depth historical analysis of the role of tattooing in the collaborations and negotiations between Native American groups and colonists and bureaucrats of New France. In future research, we hope to examine contemporary forms and functions among extant native groups of the US Southeast.

Publications

2016 CD Lynn, JT Dominguez, and JA DeCaro. Tattooing to “Toughen” Up: Reduced Immunological Depression among the Heavily Tattooed as an Allostatic Response. American Journal of Human Biology, published online ahead of print http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajhb.22847/abstract.​In review CD Lynn. Tattooing in North America Pre- and Post-Cook’s Polynesian Encounter: Contemporary and Aboriginal Convergence in Form and Function.